Senior-oriented community planned for Brunswick County

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) -- Brunswick County is about to get another, large-scale community.

Developers promise they have the right ingredients for success in a region where the recession left many planned communities looking like ghost towns.

In the next six months to a year, developers say they hope to break ground on a more than 2,100-acre plot of land to build The Charles, a one-of-a-kind senior living community, near the intersection of NC 211 and Midway Road north of Oak Island.

"This is a community for retirees that has a supportive structure in place for meeting their medical, physical and social needs," developer Gene Vaughan said.

The community, mostly for seniors over 55, will have dining, shopping, fitness and pretty much anything you need all in one place. Developers say the goal is to create a place where seniors can "age in place." It even has its own healthcare campus boasting skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care, physical therapy and much more.

"The healthcare building in and of itself is something that is a market differentiator," developer Bob Duffy said. "It doesn't exist in many places. Only one of a few communities in this whole area have anything like that at their front gate."

But with many failed communities lining the road, we wanted to know what developers are doing with this community to make sure it's a success.

"Aside from the size and the initial economics is just making sure that you keep the money in the project," Duffy said.

He says if you look at the communities that made it through the recession, they all have one thing in common.

"They did not pull the profit out and invest it in three other projects," Duffy said. "They kept it in the community, they reinvested in more development and completed the amenities."

Developers say the community will create nearly 3,500 jobs and generate $750 million over the lifetime of the project

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